The latest round of the Scottish Government CivTech programme invites companies and individuals to come up with innovations and products that will improve lives and practices across a wide range of public sector areas.

The tenth edition of the programme will provide entrepreneurs, startups, and companies the ability to work with public institutions to solve problems through collaborative technological innovations.

Applications to submit ideas to tackle nine different challenges are now open. They range from cutting pharmaceutical waste to using technology to improve public engagement in policymaking. Additional “wildcard” challenges are anticipated to launch in the coming weeks.

Successful applicants will work with their Challenge Sponsor to develop their proposal and pitch for a place in the programme’s Accelerator phase, which offers both financial and practical support to develop the business and market the concept to the public sector.

Since it launched in 2016, around £20m of Scottish Government funding has been invested in the CivTech programme, with 90 companies and entrepreneurs helped to grow and develop.

These include bioscience company SilviBio and Tape for Trees, which developed new seed germination technologies to help Forestry and Land Scotland increased the efficiency and survival rates of its tree seedlings.

“Driving entrepreneurship and innovation is important to helping unlock each of the Scottish Government’s priorities of eradicating child poverty, boosting economic growth, achieving net zero and improving public services,” employment and investment minister Tom Arthur said.

“In CivTech, we have a way to stimulate progress across each of these priorities so that, together, we can improve people’s lives and achieve our ambitions as a nation.

“This funding offers a unique opportunity not just to foster and support the innovators and entrepreneurs as part of a vibrant economy, but harness their ideas and inventions to continually test and improve our public services and our way of life.”

While CivTech is designed to support public institutions and councils, startups and entrepreneurs also often benefit from the experience.

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“CivTech was a launchpad for us,” founder and CEO of This is Milk, Angelea Prenter-Smith said. Her company participated in CivTech 5.

“We got the amazing opportunity to develop a world-first platform directly with Government stakeholders, who trusted us to develop the product in line with user needs.

“My CivTech journey started with my 3-person band business, my five-year-old and a two-week-old baby called Neve. I showed up to the accelerator, baby in hand, through Covid lockdown and the team couldn’t have been more supportive.

“The result has been Neve Learning, the most accessible and inclusive, hybrid learning platform on the market. We’ve worked with the public sector for many years, and never found a fit for purpose procurement opportunity that genuinely provides the platform for innovation and human-centred product design.”